I started doing some “worship metrics” I suppose you’d call it, on our set lists. I pulled out some interesting stats on the songs we use. One metric I wish we had was “anointing level.” Some kind of sliding scale that shows which songs God is using and the congregation is responding to(only partially joking). I suppose the play count is a reflection of that. So here are the worship song stats for my band at Life Connection Church.

Top 5 worship songs in the last year…

1. Hosanna - Hillsong United, We Cry Out - Kim Walker (tie)
2. How I Live - Kyle Campos (me)
3. I Am A Temple - John Mark McMillan
4. (4 way tie)
   1. Salvation Is Here - Hillsong United
   2. Ready Now - Desperation Band
   3. Rescue - Desperation Band
   4. Sweetly Broken - Jeremy Riddle
5. (4 way tie)
   1. What the World Will Never Take - Hillsong United
   2. Everlasting God - New Life
   3. Rain Down - Delirious
   4. Solid Rock - Delirious

Biggest Rotation Increase from 2 years ago…

1. Hosanna - Hillsong United (played 11 more times this past year)
2. We Cry Out - Kim Walker (11 more times)
3. How I Live - Kyle Campos (10 more times)
4. I Am A Temple - John Mark McMillan (9 more times)
5. Rain Down - Delirious (7 more times)
6. Solid Rock - Delirious (7 more times)
7. How He Loves - John Mark McMillan (6 more times)

All of the above songs were introduced this past year.

Biggest Rotation Drop off from 2 years ago..

1. Let Everything that Has Breath - Matt Redman (played 6 less times in the past year)
2. From the Inside Out - Hillsong United (5 less times)
3. Friend of God - Israel Houghton (4 less times)
4. Shout Unto God - Hillsong United (4 less times)
5. *Holy Spirit Come - Rita Springer (4 less times)
6. *Meet With Me - Michael Gungor (4 less times)

* Haven’t played at all in the last year, out of rotation

Would love to hear from some other worship leaders on what songs are topping their rotation currently.

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Lacrae and his group did a concert at Mars Hill Church but also joined Red Letter on stage during worship to lead a song this past Sunday evening. Amazing worship song. So cool that MHC has the courage to do things like this. I love seeing people with a conviction and identity and just going after it.

‘Send Me’ - Live at MHC | Ballard from Mars Hill Church on Vimeo.

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I don’t claim to be the Associated Press of all that is Christian music. Sometimes I arrive at the scene a little late, this would be one of those times, but I don’t think too many people knew about this. One of my favorite bands in the 90s was Superdrag, they are best known for their hit “Sucked Out” off their cd “Regretfully Yours”. I saw them live with Ben Folds Five and that show to this day goes down as one of my all time favorites.

John Davis founded the band, led on vocals and guitar. Incredible songwriter, incredible rock voice, killer guitar work, what else can you say, dude was just a flat out rock star. He also lived the life of a rock star and hit rock bottom. One night, prior to the release of their last album, while driving to his parent’s house Davis pulled over and prayed to God. John said he felt God answered him right there and it was life changing for him. John sobered up and soon left the band.

John’s latest solo album Arigato is awesome. It has a lot of the Superdrag grit but lyrically he’s all about talking about the greatness of God. It’s amazing to hear modern day Damascus road stories and to see the fruit of that experience lived out in someone’s life. Go check John out on myspace, I’ll be working on getting an interview with him. Oh and Superdrag is reuniting and releasing a new cd….yes!

On January 8th, 2008, John Davis announced on the Superdrag news section that the band is reunited indefinitely, stating that “Superdrag’s original line-up will reconvene in the recording studio in February to begin work on our first new recording project together since 1998’s Head Trip In Every Key.”

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Yesterday I posted the video of Tim Smith’s interview with Bob Kauflin and I must say how blessed I was by listening to the interview. I respect both of those men and value both of their insight. I mention in the same post some of the wonderful things that were brought up and I’ll blog more on those in a bit. The first follow up I have though is a disagreement in application of musical gifting in the church.

Around 34:50 of the interview. Bob says,

“…in the church I’m never going to achieve, or want to achieve the degree of musical excellence that I’m probably capable of, because I don’t think all that musical excellence will serve the glory of Jesus Christ in the gathered church.”

I would simply ask, “Why not?” The implication here is musical mediocrity will serve the glory of Jesus in the gathered church and I just don’t buy that at all. I think we’re all grateful Michelangelo didn’t have this attitude when he painted the Sistine Chapel. Surely those in worship would be distracted by the beauty of his art and the level of excellence he demonstrated. Surely it would have been better for him to paint in a more mediocre way so as not to draw attention to the art. Of course not, I don’t think there are many who would make that argument. The Sistine Chapel is one of the world’s greatest artistic expressions of worship ever created, if not the greatest. It’s easy to see the folly in this logic with other forms of art, but for some reason many make this argument when it comes to music.

Bob goes on to refer to something John Piper calls “an undistracting excellence.” Which states that “you are so excellent at what you do that no one really notices” but instead notices how great God is. Before I get rolling here I want to point out, I’ve never read John Piper’s thoughts on this, I’m only commenting on what Bob communicated in the interview. I love John Piper, and Bob Kauflin for that matter, and will certainly look for some text or audio on this topic to see what John has to say.

Now, while I agree fully that our focus should be completely upon the greatness of Jesus I disagree that the better you are musically the more of a barrier you become to that purpose. I also disagree that art is in someway a “distraction” from worshiping God. Our art should be a reflection of good, great and loving God just as our lives should be a reflection of Christ as the image bearers of God. Art is an expression, and to pick a point on a the scale of excellent artistic expression and say, “beyond this point you’ve expressed too well and now you’re a distraction” I think is pretty silly. Quite honestly I find mediocre and poor expression much more distracting than excellent expression and I think most would agree.

Looking at a crappy painting on a wall doesn’t reflect anything of God to me. Looking at the Sistine Chapel however reflects the beauty and majesty of God, not of Michelangelo. Listening to a bunch of mediocre musicians lead worship music by playing an uneven time, singing out of key, and writing terribly boring and poorly crafted melodies does not “better serve the glory of Jesus Christ.” Now I’m not saying Bob is saying this, but what other option are we left with?

We either strive to improve, play our best and craft the most beautiful music we can in response to God giving us the best of himself in his Son, or we stop working at our craft and say this is good enough for God and the body of Christ. I say the latter is not a good option as Malachi 1:7-10Malachi 1:7-10
English: American Standard Version (1901) - ASV
7 Ye offer polluted bread upon mine altar. And ye say, Wherein have we polluted thee? In that ye say, The table of Jehovah is contemptible. ⁸ And when ye offer the blind for sacrifice, it is no evil! and when ye offer the lame and sick, it is no evil! Present it now unto thy governor; will he be pleased with thee? or will he accept thy person? saith Jehovah of hosts. ⁹ And now, I pray you, entreat the favor of God, that he may be gracious unto us: this hath been by your means: will he accept any of your persons? saith Jehovah of hosts. ¹⁰ Oh that there were one among you that would shut the doors, that ye might not kindle [fire on] mine altar in vain! I have no pleasure in you, saith Jehovah of hosts, neither will I accept an offering at your hand.  

warns, we must offer our best sacrifice of praise. This also means using all wisdom in crafting beautiful but singable songs for the body to unite in. It’s possible folks, we don’t have to sound like Grade C musicians in the church to unite the body, please believe me…please!

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sim·i·le
A figure of speech in which two essentially unlike things are compared, often in a phrase introduced by like or as, as in “How like the winter hath my absence been” or “So are you to my thoughts as food to life” (Shakespeare).

A powerful tool of writing and one not much used in modern worship is simile. Metaphor is more commonly uses in modern worship songwriting and we’ll discuss that later, but for now I want to focus on simile. Psalms is full of simile which is no surprise since much of it was originally written as music. Simile helps us associate an abstract idea or theological view with a concrete illustration which helps us define and explain the abstract. Quite simply, an effective simile helps us understand a big idea by comparing it to an idea we all are very familiar with. Simile can also be purely poetic where the object being compared doesn’t require further explanation but the writer chooses to for lyrical clarity, imagery, style and/or conformity. Ideally both should be accomplished.

Let’s summarize things a simile should accomplish and then we’ll look at some examples.

1. Bring clarity to a big idea or theological view through comparison of a concrete idea or object
2. Poetically describe a topic so a congregation can sing the same truth through different lenses
3. Provide a fresh view of an old idea or truth that helps the congregation sing in spirit and truth
4. Support song topic

Things a simile should not accomplish:

1. Create confusion through inaccurate, inappropriate, incomplete comparison
2. Create multiple avenues of interpretation due to an overly vague, or abstract comparison. We should be singing the same truth not reaching different conclusions because you chose a really vague and inaccurate way to describe something.
3. Use so many fresh views that nobody is quite sure what is being described anymore. Similes should support the song topic, not distract from it.

Let’s look at an intriguing example in Psalms 39:11Psalms 39:11
English: American Standard Version (1901) - ASV
11 When thou with rebukes dost correct man for iniquity, Thou makest his beauty to consume away like a moth: Surely every man is vanity. [Selah  

.

You rebuke and discipline men for their sin; you consume their wealth(beauty) like a moth– each man is but a breath(vanity). Selah

This is great usage because it paints such a vivid picture of how the wicked’s beauty and wealth are consumed. A moth eats bit by bit, leaving holes as it eats. David is a little preoccupied with his enemies not being crushed and dealt with as he’d like. So David talks a lot about this topic and this line does a lot to describe how God is working through David and helps describe an abstract idea of God consuming wealth with a concrete idea of how a moth consumes.

It was really challenging finding modern examples of good simile but I found some great ones after the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »

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As many of you know John Mark McMillan performed at our church, Life Connection Church in April. He was nice enough to sit down with us for a good long conversation. This video is just part 1 of our conversation. John Mark is an amazing guy and had a lot of great insight into music and worship. You don’t want to miss any part of the interview so make sure you subscribe to the rss feed to keep up to date when we release the other portions of the interview.

Also We’ll be doing a little giveaway here. The prize is John Mark McMillan’s cd “The Songs Inside the Sounds of Breaking Down” on iTunes. So you will get the album gifted to you over iTunes. To enter into the giveaway you need to so 2 simple things:

1. Link to this post on some other site. Could be your own blog, could be a digg submission, delicious, Facebook, you get the idea. All those nifty links are at the bottom of this post.
2. Comment on this post with a link to where you mentioned this post.

That’s all you have to do. I’ll let the competition run for 2 weeks. Now onto the video…

See also Part 2.

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Took a shot of my live setup with my iPhone this past Sunday. Thought it might be fun to diagram exactly what I play with.

1. Apple MacBook Pro (GR) - this is my workhorse. In addition to running Guitar Rig I use this for most all my personal work. It’s an older MBP but it gets the job done. 2.33 Ghz Intel Core Duo, 2GB RAM, 120GB HD
2. Guitar Rig 3 - After leading worship and playing lead guitar in a lot of worship bands in smaller venues I was sick of dealing with stage volume issues. I was having to turn my amp down so low amp didn’t have the chance to get to the warm part of the tubes. Literally I was having to have my amp down at 1 so the FOH guys would stop complaining. So I was really limited in my tone and sound. All direct options whether software or multi effects had such poor quality and weren’t an option until I found Guitar Rig. I experimented with it on some recording projects, then tried it live and was very happy with the flexibility and sound quality. So this is my rig for small venues and I highly recommend it for congregations 300 or smaller.
3. Behringer FCB 1010 Midi Foot Controller - I don’t particularly like the foot controller that comes with Guitar Rig, so I just got the software edition and got my own midi foot controller. 2 foot pedals is a must, dedicated volume pedal then the other for trem speed, wah, what have you.
4. Presonus FireBox - “2 out of 3 musicians recommend Presonus for their firewire audio interface needs.” I’m one of the 2.
5. Apple Macbook Pro (Reason) -My newer machine. 2.4Ghz Intel Core Duo, 4GB Ram, 150GB HD
6. Reason 4 - I talked a bit about how this came to be in an earlier post. Slowly been integrating more synth tracks, live and recorded.
7. M-Audio Oxygen8 v2 - wanted something small and ultra portable with a decent amount of assignable controls and transport. This fit the bill. Great controller for Reason.

Guitars

1. Fender American Standard Strat 3-tone sunburst - not old enough to say the year yet. Over 10yrs old, less than 30.
2. Gibson Super Jumbo Acoustic, J100 Xtra - I love jumbo acoustics, I like them to sound full, deep and rich. Not a fan of bright acoustics.

Some other time I’ll diagram my amp and stomp box setup. So that’s what I play regularly, comment with your setup.

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If this hadn’t happened to my own brother I wouldn’t believe it. Here’s what he managed to score at goodwill with real world value breakdown:

• 4 piece late 60’s Ludwig Blue Oyster Super Classic (acrolite snare)
  • floor tom = $1,000
  • tom = $500
  • kick = $1,000
  • snare = $200
• original cases ($200)
• Paiste Formula 602 cymbals ($600)
• some sweet old school practice pads (vintage value…who knows)
• spare Rogers Super 10 Snare ($200)
• xylophone (do people pay for these?)

The best part is all this was originally $200 at goodwill but my bro just happened to show up on 50% day. Apparently $200 for all of this was just too much, they got to move product after all.

Adding it all up this is $3,700 worth of equipment bought for $100 at goodwill, with no guns involved, no threats of any kind, this was a peaceful transaction. I NEVER find anything good at goodwill much less this kind of treasure. Usually I start feeling sick after 5 minutes smelling the musty old clothes and run out screaming after seeing old men pick out someone else’s dirty underwear from the $0.10 rack. Leave a message on my brother’s facebook congratulating him on this robbery.

This raises a good question, what’s the best thing you ever scored from goodwill/thrift store?

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When playing recorded intros in Reason there’s something you don’t want to do, unless you intentionally want to screw up the song and distract the entire congregation. I of course didn’t intentionally do this yesterday, but unfortunately intentions mean jack squat in music. No there is not going to be any video going up on You Tube so you all can laugh at me. Below is a screen shot of the intro I used for Ready Now, see if you can spot the problem. Hint: this is just an “intro”.

Screen shot with the answer after the jump.

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It’s here folks! We will be selling tickets at the door if you’ve slacked and haven’t already bought your tickets. There are a few VIP tickets left, just a few. VIP Q&A session starts at 5pm, doors open at 6pm, concert starts at 7pm. Go here for full ticket information.

See you tonight!

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